for all this wondrous cinema, First Man is a film of a melancholy text, of obsession compelled by tragedy, of privileged men chasing aspiration at the expense of the struggling masses - Film RacketEDIT

like a time capsule from 1998, the sort of patently ridiculous but nevertheless stolidly earnest wannabe late-summer tentpole that's so mind-numbing that at least the act of watching isn't too painful - Film RacketEDIT

successful is the film's second half - including a final moment as enthralling as any the MCU has ever delivered - that one is left to ponder a version of the film that generated that kind of energy earlier - Film RacketEDIT

this version of It, under a thick layer of polish and bearing the burden of long-standing expectation, ably navigates its obstacles to deliver an absorbing exploration of childhood fears, writ large - Film RacketEDIT

Affleck's most square-jawed and least successful filmmaking foray, a period saga of such ungainly narrative earnestness that even its most exciting sequences are blunted by the cumbersome drag of their connective tissue - Film RacketEDIT